We've All Been There
by Cyllwen
Summary: Really just a short exe. to get me used to writing the fandom. Carter gets a letter about the passing of a friend in the war. Newkirk tries to help, he really doesn't but he tries.


Okay Kids you know the drill. The ideas and rights of Hogan's Heroes do not belong to me and neither do the characters. Poem is by Sir Walter Scott and also not mine. Fixed a really stupid mistake.

There was a great silence over the camp the day that the news came. The guards were a bit softer of foot than normal and the dogs were napping in the lazy sunlight. Schultz was off on a ten day leave. Klink was in bed with the flu. There had been no roll call that morning and most of the troops stayed in bed. In fact the only person who knew the reason for this odd lull in their lives was quiet glad for it. The world had changed and it knew it.

Andrew Carter read his letter for the eighth time before folding it up and putting it under his pillow. Very few of the men stirred around him. In fact the only person who had gotten out of bed that morning was Peter Newkirk. The Brit was sitting at the table playing cards with himself.

Andrew watched him for a while, a strange unreasonable anger growing up inside of him. How was it when the rest of the world was halting that this man was humming and playing cards! How was it that he couldn't feel it? The cold dark horror of the sunny morning that had come creeping from his letter. He went to open his mouth.

"Steady there Andrew. You don't want to wake the others." Peter silenced him without so much as an upward glance. "Besides it ain't me 'our angry with."

Andrew blinked and glanced towards his pillow. Surely Newkirk wouldn't go as far as to read his mail. He shook his head. Peter was sneaky and abrasive but seldom flat out mean and reading someone's mail was flat out mean.

"No I didn't read your letter." Peter said once again without looking up. "I can tell from the look on your face."

"Tell what?"

"You think you're the first here to get a letter like that?" This time the British man looked up with a soft smile. "I've seen it many times before and I'll see it many times again."

"I don't know what you're talking about Newkirk." Andrew hoped that the older man would get the hint.

"Did you know him well?" Cards hit the table with a soft sound like moth wings as he laid them down in sequence, each and everyone slowly finding its way to its final place. "The one from the letter? He from your unit?"

Andrew didn't like this. The quiet before had been fine, fitting and all this talk about it was just making him worse. "I don't really want to talk about it. I think I'll go back to sleep."

"Got one myself last week. I used to have three brothers in the war." The cards came down a little slower now, the first sign that he wasn't paying that much attention to the game. "Rodney didn't last 

very long in the war. He was infantry when the German's invaded France. Got hit by some shrapnel from a bomb. Around the same time I got captured it was. Alastair's still right as rain. He's flies a desk back in England. I got a letter from Andrew last month saying he was joining up. It had been delayed a bit. I could tell because he always dates his letters. Told me he was coming to get me." Peter finally met the American's eyes but only for a moment. Andrew was shocked by the genuine emotion that was behind his gaze. "He was three years younger than me. I used to make sure he made it to and from school alright." The cards had all but stopped, one hovered in the air. Peter's hand was shaking. "London sent me his commendation. He…" The last of the cards went down quickly. "He flew his plane into a target when all the bombers were destroyed before they could complete their mission." Peter laid his head down on the table for a moment in a vain attempt to compose himself.

Carter looked around not knowing what to do. He wasn't sure that he had ever seen one of the guys cry before. He was shocked when he realized that most of the barracks were awake and staring at the American Sergeant and the British Corporal. Raw understanding was in every set of eyes.

Peter brought his head back up. "He would have been thirty today." It was amazing how loud the hoarse whisper seemed. For a few moments no one said anything.

"How do you stand it?" It took Carter a moment to realize that the person that had spoken was him. "I mean Paul was just a friend of mine and I didn't know him all that well."

"Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er," The phrase had the half haunting quality of a chant. "Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;" The Englishman's voice grew stranger as he continued until it was half speaking and half singing as if he was humming the words. "Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking. In our isle's enchanted hall, Hands unseen thy couch are strewing, Fairy strains of music fall, Every sense in slumber dewing. Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er, Dream of fighting fields no more: Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more." There was nothing for a time. All the soldiers fell into reflection. Peter put his head back down on the table.

It was Carter who once again broke the silence he had earlier been so keen on preserving. "Wow. You English sure have some nice poetry."

"Actually he was Scottish, Sir Walter Scott."

Andrew looked down at his pillow for a moment before fishing the letter out from under it. He smoothed it open and laid it down in his lap. "He was always laughing even when everyone else was real scared. I just wish that he hadn't of had to die alone."

"Very few men actually die alone Andrew, Especially when they have friends like you."

El Fin


End file.
